Panel from the top of a mirror frame

18th century

Not on view

This oak panel, originally part of a room decoration, once framed the top of a large mirror. It would have been painted and possibly partially gilded but has been stripped of its original paint layers. The carved decoration is still strictly symmetrical suggesting a date of circa 1725. The female mask, crowned by flowers, symbolizes Flora.

This panel was part of the model collection of woodwork, paneling, and seat furniture of Maison Leys, a successful decorating business, located at the Place de la Madeleine in Paris. Since 1885 the business was directed by Georges Hoentschel who installed the collection in 1903 in a museum-like display at Boulevard Flandrin, Paris. Three years later, Hoentschel sold the collection to J. Pierpont Morgan who gave the panel with the rest of the decorator’s seventeenth and eighteenth-century objects to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1907.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Panel from the top of a mirror frame
Date: 18th century
Culture: French
Medium: Oak
Dimensions: Overall, approximate depth (confirmed): 35 1/2 × 54 7/8 × 5 in. (90.2 × 139.4 × 12.7 cm)
Classification: Woodwork
Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1906
Object Number: 07.225.20
Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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Boiserie from the Hôtel Lauzun, Carved and painted oak, French, Paris — Boiserie from the Hôtel Lauzun
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Boiserie from the Hôtel de Varengeville, Carved, painted, and gilded oak, French, Paris — Boiserie from the Hôtel de Varengeville
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Boiserie from the Hôtel de Cabris, Grasse, Carved, painted, and gilded oak, French, Paris — Boiserie from the Hôtel de Cabris, Grasse
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ca. 1774, with later additions

Mechanical table (Table mécanique), Jean Henri Riesener French, Oak veneered with marquetry of bois satiné, holly, amaranth, barberry, stained sycamore, and green-lacquered wood; gilt-bronze mounts; steel, iron and brass fittings; mirror glass; velvet (not original), French, Paris — Mechanical table (Table mécanique)
Jean Henri Riesener
Jean-Gotfritt Mercklein
1778

Mechanical table, Jean Henri Riesener French, Oak veneered with mahogany and marquetry of bois satiné, sycamore, holly, ebonized holly fillets, and bayberry, the top with an amaranth border; gilt-bronze mounts; mirror glass; iron and brass fittings; green velvet (not original), French, Paris — Mechanical table
Multiple artists/makers
1781

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